There is no doubt that even the most casual web surfer has, in recent days, been exposed to the Kony 2012 campaign on Youtube and throughout social media.
In a matter of days, the video has garnered tens of millions of views, while enjoying significant coverage in the mainstream press, radio and television.
The video was released by the San Diego-based organization Invisible Children, led by activist Jason Russell.
In the filmmaker’s own words, the video aims to make Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, a “famous” figure to be immediately arrested and tried so as to set an international “precedent” for justice.
Kony is accused of overseeing recruitment and abuse of child soldiers, sexual mutilation and abuse of women, and campaigns of murder throughout the Acholi region of Northern Uganda.
By the LRA’s own admission, it is a movement dedicated to creating a theocratic state that will derive its authority and law directly from the Christian bible.
In activist and academic circles, the group’s actions have been regularly discussed and denounced, but this viral campaign marks its first true introduction to the broader public.
KONY DECONSTRUCTION
As the video of Kony and the LRA has ripped through the internet, it has equally unleashed the power of “slactivists” worldwide, collectively joining the band-wagon of African-awareness feel-goodism in tweeting, Facebooking and blogging the video to all corners of the Internet.
While no individual can argue that renewed awareness of mass causalities is a bad thing, I find it most appropriate to more specifically deconstruct the aims of Invisible Children and the Kony 2012 campaign.
To begin, it is always appropriate to examine the latest facts of the situation.
Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the LRA who is the face of this campaign, has not been in Uganda since 2006.
The LRA has not been any significant force in the Acholi region since then, and Kony himself has not been spotted in over two and a half years.
In fact, the Ugandan army has, in search of Kony and his cronies, been accused of even worse crimes than the LRA.
A new report written by the Social Science Research Council provides evidence that Ugandan troops are involved with hundreds of cases of prostitution, rape and murder–though they receive full support from Invisible Children and countless other NGOs.
For full affect, the video claims that the LRA actively has an army of 30,000 child soldiers—a number which actually represents the total number of kidnapped children since the beginning of the conflict nearly 30 years ago, and even the number of central Africans killed in the war.
The video makes the case for further American military intervention in Uganda, even after President Obama signed the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act in 2010 and sent over 100 troops into Uganda to “assist” and “advise” Ugandan troops actively searching for remnants of the LRA.
If the Americans can just send more technology and weapons, narrates Jason Russell, then the search for Kony can finally come to an end, a point made through the promotional photograph of the filmmakers touting weapons with the Ugandan army.
INCENTIVES MATTER
After establishment of the facts involved, it is useful to turn to the aims and finances of the group itself.
According to Invisible Children’s 2010 and 2011 financial assessment, the group spent over $8 million on production, film, and salaries, raising close to $13 million from donors and patrons.
Of that $8 million spent, only 32 percent actively found its way onto the African continent, the reason Charity Navigator has routinely given the charity low marks for transparency and effectiveness and the Better Business Bureau has been vocal in their own criticism.
Renewed focus on the group has evoked a plethora of criticism in academia and the media.
Perhaps the most targeted aspect of the charity’s campaign is the $30-plus-shipping-and-handling Kony 2012 action kit, maxed out with posters and wristbands allowing customers to propagate the message of African warlord justice.
Writers at the Atlantic described Invisible Children as an “arrogant” and “misguided” group that will eventually do “more harm” than good in the fight for justice in Africa.
“It is the right message but it’s 15 years too late, ” says Ugandan military spokesman Col. Felix Kulayige.
“If people cared 15 years ago, then thousands of lives would have been saved and thousands of children would have stayed at home and not been kidnapped.”
Rosebell Kagumire, a reputed and award-winning Ugandan journalist, also denounces their monolithic approach to a problem already left in the dust.
Even the original photographer of the filmmaker’s gun-touting pose with the Ugandan military has come out to criticize the video, claiming the group has long been “emotionally manipulative” in its productions.
PLAYING INTO GEOPOLITICAL STRATEGY
Perhaps the most important ramification of the Kony 2012 campaign rests in the geopolitical and economic strategies which actually underlie the core issue.
With untold billions of dollars worth of oil newly-discovered in Uganda, the area has become a hotbed of Western investment and vast potential profits for well-connected oil companies.
Just last month, British oil giant Tullow signed a $2.9 billion deal with the Ugandan government to begin production and distribution of the nation’s rich crude oil, enriching high-profile investors in America and Asia.
The company also recently recruited the help of the English Premier League Football Club Sunderland AFC, who are tasked with making in investing the region both culturally and economic feasible for wealthy Britons.
By 2018, Uganda stands to produce nearly 180,000 barrels of oils a day, according to the the nation’s energy secretary.
This also brings new focus to the topic of Chinese investment in African oil-exploration sites, including a partnership with Tullow company in Uganda.
In 2009, China surpassed the United States as the largest trading partner to all African countries.
While Western nations turn to their militaries, Chinese companies have already spent tens of billions of dollars building infrastructure and mines in Africa, says the Economist, and the next decade of African cooperation stands to benefit China immensely in comparative trade totals.
In essence, this represents a new era of mercantilism, focused on the vast natural resources which have often proved to be a curse for the often war-torn citizens of African states.
A study published in Political Geography magazine a few years ago explores this issue more deeply, arguing that Africa has become the battleground for the competing hegemons of China and the United States–conveniently misplacing the interests of the African people.
CONCLUSION
While there is no simple answer to fully present the fallacies and disingenuous aims of the Kony 2012 campaign, it is important to remind readers and internet users of the inherent necessity of skepticism when faced with large-scale and well-funded campaigns backed by political, economic and Hollywood elites.
Though the campaign may have succeeded in awakening millions of the previously unlearned to the terrible atrocities of the African civil wars, those same millions should know that a return to fundamental justice on the continent will require more critical reassessments than a dubious social media campaign coincidentally parroting the same line as monied oil interests.
In the end, it will take an alert and knowledgeable citizenry, able to trump the vested interests which crowd traditional and new-age decision makers in media and government, privately enriching themselves based on the suffering and fleeting of their fellow man.
